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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

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My love is as a fever, longing still

Christopher Bursk

It didn't take a Harvard Medical School degree
to detect you and I were not lovers destined to wed
but two viruses doing their best to infect each other,
two fevers that'd spread, different symptoms of the same
sickness. Past cure I am, now reason is past care.
Did I really wish to die? The doctor dismissed me
with the professional ease with which one might swat a fly,
as if for the fly's own good. So what
if you loved me more intimately than anyone ever would?
A cancer cell could say that of any body
it refused to let go. Once the heart was infected,
how could it be corrected? So what was I waiting for?
The truth is, the doctor smiled,
the microbe adores the flesh it's dating.

Christopher Bursk

by this poet

Because one day I grew so boredwith Lucretius, I fell in lovewith the one object that seemed to be stationary,the sleeping kid two rows up,the appealing squalor of his drooping socks.While the author of De Rerum Natura was making funof those who fear the steep way

Sundays, your father climbs out a window
onto the roof,
looking for somewhere
there are no women,
nothing else to do
but undress,
lie down and open his arms wide,
spread his legs
and make an X,
a target for the sun
to concentrate
all its